In the field of computer-implemented games, there are many technical challenges facing the designer of such games when considering how the user interface is to be controlled in the context of computer devices available to play the game.
One technical challenge can involve allowing a game to be fun and compelling even when there is limited display resource available, such as when a game is being played on a smartphone, tablet or other minicomputer. A limited display resource provides challenges such as how a user can interact with a particular part of the display. Another challenge relates to how to provide relatively complexity which is able to be rendered in a visual distinct manner on the relatively small display.
Another significant challenge is that of user engagement. Engagement involves designing gameplay and devices to be engaging and rewarding to players. This typically requires games to be easily understood at their simplest or introductory levels, providing rewarding gameplay with quite simple game mechanics, but becoming progressively more challenging so that players are not bored, but remain engaged and develop rewarding skills. Effective engagement requires various forms of feedback to reinforce player sense of success and accomplishment. Often this needs to be provided in the context of an environment where only a limited number of resources of a computing device can be used in running the computer implemented game.
A common genre of casual games is so-called match games. This is a type of tile-matching game where the player manipulates tiles or game objects according to a matching criterion.
A match-three game is a type of casual puzzle game where the player is required to find patterns on a seemingly chaotic board. The player then has to match three or more of the same type of game element on the game board and those matched elements will then disappear.
One or more of the technical challenges discussed previously arise when introducing complexity into such match games.